In 1977, UN General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s longest-running and most controversial conflicts.
It is a conflict between two self-determination movements — the Jewish Zionist project and the Palestinian nationalist project — that lay claim to the same territory. Despite the salience of other crises in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the mother crisis.
Over the past several decades, the issue has, directly and indirectly, inflamed the region, and at varying levels, the entire Muslim world. Other issues in the region from time to time eclipse the Israeli-Palestinian issue in their savagery, murder, regional and global impact.
The region has remained capricious, dogged by conflict activity, since the late 1940s. The existence of the Jewish state in Palestine, sponsored by the western powers in its wicked crusades at the expense of the native population, has sparked three full-scale wars and different low-intensity conflicts in the Middle East.
A brief history of Palestine
Palestine was a common name used until 1948 to illustrate the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In its history, the Assyrian, Babylonian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires have taken over Palestine from the time to time.
Palestine was controlled by the United Kingdom under a Mandate received in 1922 from the League of Nations after World War I. The modern history of Palestine begins with the execution of the British Mandate, the Partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel, and the ensuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The partition of Palestine
The United Nations (U.N.) in 1947 proposed a Partition Plan for Palestine titled “United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine.”
The declaration noted Britain’s designed termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and suggested the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area protected and administered by the United Nations.
The resolution called for the removal of the British army and termination of the Mandate by August 1948 and the establishment of the newly independent states by October 1948.
First Arab-Israeli War (1948)
Jewish headship accepted the Partition Plan however Arab leaders discarded it. The Arab League threatened to take military steps to stop the partition of Palestine and to ensure the national rights of the Palestinian Arab population. The Arab countries announced war on the newly created State of Israel beginning the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
After the war, Israel controlled some areas designated for the Arab state under the Partition Plan, Transjordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip.
Rise of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
The Arab League recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legal representative of the Palestinian people and turned down its role as the representative of the West Bank in 1974.
In 1988, the Palestinian National Council of the PLO permitted a Palestinian Assertion of Independence in Algiers, Tunisia. The declaration was accompanied by a PLO call for multilateral negotiations on the basis of U.N. Resolution 242.
The Intifada (1987 to 1993)
In December 1987, conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Jerusalem, after more than 21-years of forces occupation, repression and confiscation of land, added to a Palestinian uprising called the intifada.
Between 1987 and 1993, more than 1,100 Palestinians were killed and several others injured, detained, jailed in Israel or deported from the Palestinian territories.
The peace process
The Oslo agreements, the first direct, face-to-face conformity between Israel and the PLO, were signed and intended to give an agenda for the future relations between the two parties in 1993. The agreements also called for the removal of the Israeli army from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Implementation of the Oslo Agreements suffered a grave setback with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli PM and signer of the Oslo Accords, in November 1995.
Since, numerous peace meetings and proposals, including the Camp David Summit (2000), Taba Summit (2001), the Road Map for Peace (2002), and the Arab Peace Initiative (2002 and 2007), have attempted to broker a solution, with no success.
World Day of Solidarity, weird joke
In 1977, the General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II))
The resolution on the observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People also encourages the Member States to continue to give the widest support and publicity to the observance of the Day of Solidarity.
Isn’t it a strange joke that the international organization that has made the land of Palestine an occupied Palestine, instead of liberating Palestine, should celebrate one day? The silence of the international community and the United Nations on Israel’s atrocities is also a big question mark.
Israel required to understand the outcome of history
The attempts to endorse peace in the Middle East have botched mostly because of mistrust and suspicion existing Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In the absence of communal trust and confidence, peace remains vague as the contracting parties succumb to their invented lingering fears.
Sadly, at the same time, the unconditional shore up extended to Israel by the West has encouraged the former to adhere to a nonflexible, unbending stance. Israel’s activity of establishment of Jewish settlements on the occupied Palestinian terrain has frequently stalled the implementation of peace agreements.
Israel must realize that the efforts for justice and peace may be protracted if they are not lost. Ideas that cross the barricades and join people irrespective of borders do never die.
Israel and the western powers required to understand the outcome of history that the force of battalions can prevent the invasion of armies but not the invasion of an idea whose time has come.
There is a need to free the peace process from being hostage to militants’ extremist agenda. The international community has the obligation to take notice of these aggressive actions, which are also in violation of international law.
